Defending champion Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) won the opening stage of the Tour du Suisse on Saturday and finished safely in the main peloton after the after the 167km second stage to keep his lead.
Gorka Izaguirre of Euskaltel-Euskadi won the sprint of a shortened final stage of the Tour of Luxembourg, as Matteo Carrara of Vacansoleil defended his leader’s jersey to win the overall classification. Severe thunderstorms caused the race organisers to cancel two of the five laps of the closing circuit in the Luxembourg capital.
Jimmy Engoulvent (Saur-Sojasun), won Wednesday’s Tour of Luxembourg prologue, repeating his win in the same even in 2007.
Engoulvent, 30, came in nine seconds ahead of teammate and compatriot Cyril Lemoine, while RadioShack’s Gregory Rast was third, also nine seconds off the pace. Lance Armstrong finished 5th, ten seconds adrift with South African Daryl Impey in 6th one second further back.
The South African, Daryl Impey, who rides for Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack team, will compete in the Tour Luxembourg from Wednesday (2 June).
Impey, a former South African u.23 time-trial champion, has targeted the prologue of the tour as the stage in which he wants to excel.
Just one week after winning the Tour of Flanders, Fabian Cancellara added the 108th edition of Paris-Roubaix to his list of victories on Sunday.
The Swiss strongman caught Tom Boonen napping with about 50km to go and shot away from the Quick Step captain and a short list of elite favorites to solo in for a well-deserved victory, his second on the Roubaix velodrome.
The Holland start of the Tour de France this summer didn’t help two smaller Dutch teams earn a bid to the season’s most important race.
Vacansoleil and Skil-Shimano will be left on the sidelines come July as they were not included in six “wild card” teams revealed Tuesday to round-out the 22-team field for the 97th Tour, officials announced on Tuesday.
27-year-old André Greipel from HTC-Columia has done it again. He is showing sublime form and seems untouchable in the end sprint at this years Tour Down Under. Have you seen the size of this guys legs? No wonder he is dominating.